To all,
>From what I can understand, David, i think i agree with you, and i think
most people here do. Sanity and Insanity are just terms for differentiation.
But there has to be some difference. You can I feel accept that there is
some difference between the people we class as sane, and those we call
insane. To use an analogy, "rich" and "poor", person A might have money,
therefore we call him "rich", person B might not have money, therefore
society calls him "poor". Money is a social construct, just as sanity is.
Each one is just one way of describing a person. Just as different societies
have different ideas of what constitutes wealth, there are different ideas
of what constitutes sanity.
I hope I am not being too contentious when I say that, when you get down to
it, most humans are essentially the same. Biologically there's not much
difference, and on the emotional level, certain things are inbuilt. Now
imagine a nature program about say penguins, and one or two penguins swam in
a different direction to the rest, then the narrator would notice it, but if
all the penguins swam in different directions, nothing would be said. With
humans , if we were all radically different, "sanity" and "insanity" would
be non-existent as terms, but because most humans conform to a model, those
who break the mould are, and in a social context have to be, labelled. That
model has been created by society and biology, and much as we might not like
it, describing people by what is noticeable is crucial. David you said "I
just want people
to break out of the box of labels" Imagine giving a description to the
police in which all you could say was "Well he kind of looked human." You
have to use adjectives eg. tall (separates that person from all short and
average height people) white (ie. not black, automatically excluding some
people). Sanity and Insanity are the same, only more open to question.
Rather than physical, they are mental constructs, to separate people. What
"tall" is depends on the average height of that society is, and "tall" isn't
wrong, just not average. If a society were to discriminate against "tall" it
would be wrong. I hope you get my point, however convoluted it may be.
I'll attempt another analogy to clarify it. We are all musicians. All of us
are playing guitars, except for one saxophonist. The guitars represent the
"norm", the saxophone the "different" (be it "tall" or "insane" etc. it's
just words to describe difference). But we have to make that distinction
between guitar and saxophone, as together they sound discordant, they're not
in harmony. If we were all individuals, playing our own tune, then fine, the
saxophone might not matter, but as a band, a society, we have to play
together, and so separate the discordant instruments as a social necessity.
The correct thing to
do would be to let them have their solo, and listen to their music as well
as the standard. Sanity and Insanity exist as differences in communicating
the same thing, no more, but no less either.
Thanks
Simon
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